SEER-Medicare: Cost of Acquiring Data

The SEER-Medicare data files are created by Information Management Services, Inc. (IMS), the information technology contractor
for NCI. Outside researchers are asked to reimburse IMS for the cost of
producing the data, as listed below.

The quoted costs are for files containing cancer cases that are newly diagnosed in
each year. Other analyses, such as identifying all persons who died of a
selected cancer in a year, may require special programming at additional cost.
Please note that IMS cannot undertake extensive special programming. Additional
cleaning and data modification are the responsibility of the investigator. IMS
will begin processing a data request upon receipt of payment. Completed
datasets will be shipped by UPS ground.

All charges will be periodically reviewed to determine whether they are
fairly recovering IMS's costs and may be changed without notice.

1: The PEDSF file must be ordered.2: The SUMDENOM file must be ordered when ordering any non-cancer claim files.

These estimates are for creating data files for one cancer site, such as
lung. Use the charges in the above table to estimate the total cost of your
request. The estimated costs for the data files can also be calculated on this Web site.

If multiple cancer sites are ordered, the cost of the cancer files is
multiplied depending on the sites requested. You will be charged for one cancer
site for each of the following cancers:

Breast,

Lung,

Colorectal, and

Prostate.

For example: If all four of these cancer sites are requested, the charges in the table are multiplied by 4.

For cancer sites other than Breast, Lung. Colorectal and Prostate, the multipliers are as follows:

One to two cancer sites: × 1.

Three to four cancer sites: × 2.

Five to eight cancer sites: × 3.

Nine to twelve cancer sites: × 4.

Thirteen or more cancer sites: × 5.

For requests involving a combination of Breast, Lung, Colorectal, Prostate,
plus other site(s), the multipliers are additive. For example: the multiplier
for a request including Breast, Lung, Ovary and Uterine cancer is as
follows:

Breast × 1
Lung × 1
+ Ovary, Uterine × 1
Total multiplier: 3

If you select the 5% All Cancer Diagnosis file, it will count as one cancer
site. However, the cost of the file is a flat $110 and not subject to any
multiplier.

Please note that for all files except NCH, Outpatient, and PDE of SEER-linked
cases, the data production costs include all calendar years. For example, the
cost of MEDPAR data for 1991 – 2016 is $110. The NCH, Outpatient, and PDE files
are large. Therefore the production costs for these files are for each calendar
year. For example, the charge for 1991 – 2016 NCH claims for one cancer site is
$2,210.